twa flight 841 passenger interview

Yorke's powerful insight, correlating the direct evidence, was later presented to the NTSB in a formal Petition For Reconsideration, receipt acknowledged by the NTSB on October 9, 1990. WALAi J a 1 \ i \j J Ifi ALL i/L F ii. The out-of-control aircraft was observed by crew on the flight deck of Pan Am flight 110. Thus, based upon the Trail of Debris, and "wreckage examination", the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) contents, and crew observations, Yorke proved that the "Boeing Scenario" had misled the NTSB's staff to the erroneous assumption that the #7 Slat had extended at 39,000 feet. [1]:33. A few seconds after extending the gear, Captain Gibson managed to regain control and pull the 727 out of its dive, and at about 5,000 feet (1,500m) the nose finally came up again. Yes folks, there's no living with me now. Heading Gyro output was recorded on FDR foil, for comparison with mishap Data Recorder. 2Oct80, Flight test aboard Boeing-owned B727 E209, from BFI in Seattle. In the book Emergency: Crisis In the Cockpit,[15] Stanley Stewart, a professional pilot, has raised questions about the NTSB findings: This incident was the subject of a 44-minute CBS News Special titled "The Plane That Fell From The Sky". Trans World Airlines Flight 800 was an international scheduled passenger service from Kansas City, Missouri to Cairo, Egypt via Chicago, New York City, Paris, Milan, Rome, and Athens. (N840TW's sensing inputs, for the CVR's bulk-erase field activation, were never examined, nor did NTSB do any bench-test of the CVR). Turkish Airlines Flight 301 was a passenger flight operated by a Fokker F28-1000 Fellowship of Turkish Airlines registered as TC-JAO that crashed during takeoff at zmir Cumaovas Airport on 26 January 1974 while en route to Istanbul Yeilky Airport (IST/LTBA), killing 66 of its 73 passengers and crew.. Rohlfing said the plane is being used for cargo runs. All I could think after all we'd been through was, we'll crash on impact and burst into flames.. The Boeing 707 crashed during take off on runway 25 at Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport, Rome at 13:09 GMT on a flight to Athens International Airport, Greece on 23 November 1964. Many of the fleeing Palestinians ended up in South Lebanon, where there was already a strong presence. The detonation of the bomb destroyed the systems responsible for operating the plane's . "Pilot Says Extending Landing Gear Was Near Last Resort to Stop Dive.". Barbara Merrill was on her way to Minneapolis with Susan, her 14yearold daughter, to rejoin her Army husband. After the ousting of the PLO from Jordan following the Jordanian-Palestinian civil war, the Palestinian military organizations made South Lebanon into their headquarters, enlisting militants from Palestinian refugee camps. In the NTSB incident report, Captain Gibson said, "At no time before the incident did I take any action within the cockpit, either intentionally or inadvertently, that would have caused the extension of the leading edge slats or trailing edge flaps. They included 17 Americans (plus a baby), 13 Japanese, four Italians, four French, three Indians, two Iranians, two Israelis, two Sri Lankans, an Australian and a Canadian. </p> <p>TWA Flight 841 was a Boeing 747 passenger plane that was bombed by the Abu Nidal Organization . In studying the Dayton incident, said Rohlfing, Williams remembered the 1977 flight, went back to his log book and discovered it was the same plane Gibson flew in 1979. On April 4, 1979, a Boeing 727-31 (tail number N840TW) operating as TWA Flight 841 took off from John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City, en route to in [ [Minneapolis, Minnesota}Minneapolis]], Minnesota. The NTSB staff violated their own rules . Recommended. Suspicion has fallen on Abu Nidal and his terror organization. The detonation of the bomb destroyed the systems responsible for operating the plane's . UALAl 1*1 ALL ^ ^ in ALL L/if* i J. ''It`s unpleasant enough that I try not to think about it,'' said Gibson, who grew up on the family farm in Earlville, Ill., about 75 miles west of Chicago. Upon hardover recognition, the pilot can disconnect the faulty unit at which time the airplane is readily recoverable." The aircraft spent the night prior to the accident outside in freezing temperatures . In trying to correct the turn, Gibson said, he found the controls did not respond properly. On take-off, speeding down the runway, Flight 843 would never make it to San Francisco. ", Lindsey, Robert. Just minutes after taking off from NYC JFK Airport, TWA . [1], The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigated the accident, conducting what was at the time the lengthiest accident investigation in NTSB history. As the nation mourns its worst-ever air disaster, investigators face puzzling evidence: The surviving captain of Air China Flight 129 claims that everything on board was normal, but air traffic controllers testify that the crew's radio communications were anything but. The airline's Tel Aviv office said 49 passengers boarded the plane there for Rome and the United States. The crew of a Pan Am 707 witnessed the TWA plane crashing into the sea. After stopping for 68 minutes in Athens, it departed for Rome. Photo: The USS Independence andUSS Biddle were given the job of recovering the bodies and wreckage. The board of inquiry shall examine witnesses and secure, in the form of a public record, all known facts pertaining to the accident and surrounding circumstances and conditions ". All 92 aboard, 85 passengers and seven crew members, were killed. Mrs. Merrill was taken to a hospital where 21 Xrays were taken. There was the bleeding ulcer. Mohammed Ali Hamadei. The vibrations started. : 1 All 230 people on board died in the crash; it is the third . Then a third session on May 7, with three members of the investigation's Performance Group (Capt. NTSB investigators requested the aircraft manufacturer, Boeing, inspect the remainder of the slat assembly, including a portion of the slat actuator cylinder (the motor that moves the slat and holds it in position). In the clip below, passenger Roger Peterson gives his perspective on the NTSB findings of probable cause. The story of how a Palestinain terrorist group brought down an American airliner. Simulation Trials, conducted at the manufacturer's facilities, simulated conditions with a #7 Slat in the Extended position, while at 39,000 feet (this assumption was accepted as the cause of the rolling motion). Set target date of early June for a Boeing report to answer NTSB requests. About 30 minutes after takeoff, the plane crashed into the Ionian Sea. The nationalities of 30 other passengers and the nine crew members were not immediately known at the time. Photo: 48 Years Ago Today TWA Flight 841 Was Bombed Over The Ionian Sea, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Gibson believes this caused the controls of the plane to jam; when he was unable to get the controls to respond, the aircraft went into a dive. Having reported no mechanical issues and with no maintenance required, 46 passengers deplaned along with their baggage and some cargo. The plane started to plunge and turn, the noise got louder and louder and the whole plane was shaking. On April 4, 1979, TWA Flight 841 departed New York John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) for Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport (MSP) in Minnesota. At 8:25p.m. EST, TWA Flight 841 departed JFK International after a 45-minute delay due to traffic congestion and reached its initial cruising altitude of 35,000feet at 8:54p.m. Due to a 100-knot headwind, the pilots requested to climb to 39,000feet at 9:25p.m., which was granted. With a weak central Lebanese government, they were allowed to set up armed militias. Four passengers survived the attack, from whom two were Israeli soldiers, a woman and a five-year old girl - Miri Fristenberg, whose parents were killed in the attack.This is because of the huge massacre happened there as it was the only Jewish state on the earth. ''He gets emotional about this thing,'' said Rohlfing. . Now worried about what caused the sudden dive and the plane's structural integrity, the pilots diverted 98 miles to Detroit Metropolitan Airport (DTW) in Wayne County, Michigan, and made an emergency landing on runway 03 without further incident. I screamed for help and then I couldn't draw another breath, she said. You can also hear and see a portion of the interview I did with Dave in the post overlooked clues. The investigators believed that Boeing 727 pilots often set the trailing edge flaps to two degrees while cruising as it was rumored to increase lift with no additional drag allowing higher elevation, more speed, or less fuel consumption. In contrast to the early "interview"-style questioning from NTSB staff and Boeing (all engineers), the longest interrogation was by the FAA representative (an attorney), mostly in a hostile manor of an enforcement proceeding. The detonation of the bomb destroyed the systems responsible for operating the plane's . The Boeing simulation, presented to the NTSB's Performance Group, offered only that single failure condition: a simulation study with the #7 Slat Extended; done by modeling the sudden contribution of the "incremental rolling moment coefficient caused by the extension of the slat No. May 5, and May 7, 1979Two sessions of simulator trials, done in Seattle using Boeing's engineering simulator, with Boeing test pilots. On September 8, 1974, a Boeing 707-331B (registered N8734) operating as TWA Flight 841 from Tel Aviv to New York City via Athens and Rome crashed into the Ionian Sea, killing all aboard. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Log in, 35 Miles from Shore: The Ditching and Rescue of ALM Flight 980, Scapegoat: A Flight Crew's Journey from Heroes to Villains to Redemption. Two minutes, 30 seconds later, 274 passengers plus 19 crew members would find themselves standing in an open field . As the aircraft reached 80 . 23May80 -- Heading Gyro testing, on a Tilt/Turn-table at Kansas City. Thursday mid-day, 5Apr79 -- "Reporters were permitted to inspect the plane" FAA, airline, and NTSB spokesmen hailed the Pilots as heroes. ", Witkin, Richard. Yorke's powerful insight, correlating the direct evidence, was later presented to the NTSB in a formal Petition For Reconsideration, receipt acknowledged by the NTSB on October 9, 1990. Watch all remaining episodes of the brand new season of Air Crash Investigation, Mondays at 8pm, only on National Geographic. Investigators of the 1974 flight had only about 2,500 pounds of debris to work with, far less than has already been found from TWA's Flight 800. There were the student pilots who tore the pages from their log books so there would be no proof that H.G. Williams, who has been a TWA pilot for 31 years. For the 89 passengers aboard an early evening flight from John F Kennedy Airport to Minneapolis, TWA Flight 841 is like any other. [1]:1, Among the damage discovered after the accident, investigators found the #7 slat missing from the leading edge of the right wing. NTSB tests showed that while cruising at 39,000 feet, a right roll develops when the number seven slat is extended while all the other leading-edge devices remain retracted. 17Jan80 -- NTSB issued Safety Recommendation A-80-8 (the formal letter dated 21Jan80): " Safety Board believes that an extended No. On June 14, 1985, TWA Flight 847 was hijacked by Mohammed Ali Hamadei and a second terrorist brandishing grenades and pistols during a routine flight from Athens to Rome . Overhead racks buckled, some oxygen masks dangled, and Mrs. Merrill, pinned on the floor of the restroom, felt the locked door burst open. The experience left the flight's 80 passengers shaken, bruised . Keywords: 910408 04/04/1979 Saginaw MICHIGAN AAR8108 Pub Created Date: 8/4/2010 10:16:39 AM All three cockpit crew members, Capt. Two of the attackers were killed, while a third, Kz Okamoto . Yorke's paper demonstrated that the physical evidence was clear, the initial upset could not have been caused by an extended #7 Slat. md-87 r4 . The Lois Van Epps Scholarship has awarded $147,000 to 89 Edgemont seniors since the crash, Schutt said. The company said it sold plane N840TW several years ago and would not disclose who is now using it. Hijack. Find Twa Flight 847 stock photos and editorial news pictures from Getty Images. 7 slat caused the plane to roll and dive. The pilots regain control and make an emergency land. All pilots in that era erased the CVR after each flight, it was routine procedure, in fact called for on the parking checklist by some airlines. Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, "Distance Between Cities Places On Map Distance Calculator", "11 Years After Plane Took A Dive, Pilot Tries To Clear His Reputation", "The Plane That Fell From The Sky (Full Version) TWA 841", "FindLaw's United States Ninth Circuit case and opinions", U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, GIBSON v NTSB (appeal dismissed--lack of jurisdiction), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=TWA_Flight_841_(1979)&oldid=1133958981. After stopping for 68 minutes in Athens, it departed for Rome. Video grab of hostage aboard TWA flight 847 Allyn Conwell during tv interview from Beirut. Since the ousting of the PLO from Jordan, following the Jordanian-Palestinian civil war, the Palestinian military organizations made South Lebanon into headquarters, enlisting militants from Palestinian refugee camps. All 79 passengers and nine crew members were killed. [1]:6 The NTSB made the following statement in the accident report: We believe the captain's erasure of the CVR is a factor we cannot ignore and cannot sanction. . This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. On September 8, 1974, a Boeing 707-331B (registered N8734) operating as TWA Flight 841 from Tel Aviv to New York City via Athens and Rome crashed into the Ionian Sea, killing all aboard.The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the plane had been destroyed by a bomb hidden in the cargo hold. National Geographic gets you closer to the stories that matter and past the edge of what's possible through groundbreaking storytelling. During a flight from JFK International Airport to Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, TWA 841, a Boeing 727, deployed one of its slats while cruising at 39,000 feet.This, as some of you will know, is very bad. One disturbing aside during these depositions, which did not appear in the official transcript, was a confrontation, an emotional outburst of the IIC. After repeated reminders over more than two decades, the NTSB still refuses to respond to that Petition of Oct'1990. In his opening remarks, Kampschror (NTSB) stated that this was not a "public hearing" : thus there were none of the usual procedural safeguards customary of a formal Public Hearing. Suspicion fell on Abu Nidal and his terror organization. The Science; Conversational . On April 4, 1979, at or around 9:48 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (01:48 UTC), while flying over Saginaw, Michigan, the Boeing 727-31 airliner began a sharp, uncommanded roll to the right, and subsequently went into a spiral dive. The mishap-Captain was presented with the answer a week lateran FAA employee had reported that it was the captain himself who had made that claim. Exactly 48 years ago today, a Trans World Airlines (TWA) Boeing 707 bound for the United States crashed in the Ionian Sea, killing all 88 passengers and crew. Following a 45-minute delay, the aircraft, a 13-year-old Boeing 727-31 with the registration number N840TW, was just over an hour into the 3hr 10min flight when something went terribly wrong. FAA Administrator Langhorne Bond inspected crippled plane at Detroit; called it a miracle; NY Times reported "it is agreed that the pilot saved the passengers from certain death " Crew were debriefed by NTSB; "movement of the malfunctioning slat was the apparent cause buffeting and vibration right wing and nose dropped ". Terrorist who plotted 1973 car bombs, Khalid Al-Jawary, gets deported, Assassination of the Israeli attache in Washington, Full list of Lebanese rocket attacks on Israel, https://infogalactic.com/w/index.php?title=TWA_Flight_841_(1974)&oldid=721163816, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2014, Trans World Airlines accidents and incidents, Accidents and incidents involving the Boeing 707, Aviation accidents and incidents in Greece, Palestinian terrorist incidents in Europe, Terrorist attacks attributed to Palestinian militant groups, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, About Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core, Over the West Coast of Greece (Ionian Sea). The NTSB initially regarded this mishap as an "incident", and initially assigned their Chicago Field Office to lead their investigation. It's a miracle nobody was seriously hurt after TWA Flight 841 somehow narrowly dodged catastrophe after plummeting 34,000 feet in 63 seconds. On April 4, 1979, TWA Flight 841 departed New York John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) for MinneapolisSaint Paul International Airport (MSP) in Minnesota. However, the plane disappeared from radar screens and never arrived at its destination. The NTSB determined that it could have caused the uncontrollable maneuver. Suspicion immediately focused on the Abu Nidal terrorist organization, the most ruthless of all the Palestinian terrorist groups. On September 8, 1974, a Boeing 707-331B (registered N8734[1]) operating as TWA Flight 841 from Tel Aviv to New York City via Athens and Rome crashed into the Ionian Sea, killing all aboard. Trans World Airlines Flight 800 (TWA800) was a Boeing 747-100 that exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York, on July 17, 1996, at about 8:31 pm. Following a 45-minute delay, the aircraft, a 13-year-old Boeing 727-31 with the registration number N840TW, was just over an hour into the 3hr 10min flight when something went terribly wrong.. After traveling around 540 miles and cruising at . Badly bruised, she apparently was the most seriously hurt of the passengers, but she had no broken bones. The attack involved a young boy boarding the flight, and puttting a hidden bomb in the cargo hold, the attack killed 79 passengers and 9. (CBS News) All 230 passengers and crew were killed when TWA flight 800, a New York-to-Paris flight, crashed July 17, 1996, shortly after takeoff from John F . After ''much effort,'' the affidavit continues, he was able to return the plane to Kansas City. 7May79 -- Systems Group Factual Report completed. TWA Flight 841 IMPACT OF THE BOMBING People did not want to fly on TWA Flight 841 anymore, because they believed it was very dangerous.. . 7 slat which, when combined with the cruise condition airloads, precluded retraction of that slat. After the ousting of the PLO from Jordan following the Jordanian-Palestinian civil war, the Palestinian military organizations made South Lebanon into their headquarters, enlisting militants from Palestinian refugee camps. [1]:2 Gibson shouted "Get em' up!" With Jonathan Aris, Jeffrey Knight, Bruce Pringle, Colin Glazer. Harvey "Hoot" Gibson, First Officer Jess Scott Kennedy, and Flight Engineer Gary Nelson Banks denied having caused the extension. 2006, p. 324-5. During the 1970s and 1980s it was common for American aircraft flying to the Middle East to make a couple of stops in Europe. The crew of the Pan Am Clipper witnessed the TWA plane enter a steep climb, flip over onto its back, and then enter a spiraling dive before crashing in the Ionian Sea 50 nautical miles west of the Greek island of Cephalonia. He feels that 80 to 85 percent of the pilots on the line think the (Flight 841 crew) were screwing around with the controls.'' In 2009, the Associated Press published an article claiming that Khalid Duhham Al-Jawary, the man responsible for the 1973 New York City bomb plot, was linked to the bombing of TWA Flight 841. return from a vacation in Spain that had been Mrs. Roberts's first experience with airplanes. [1]:2 During the course of the dive, the plane rolled through 360degrees twice and exceeded the Mach limit for the 727 airframe. After stopping for 68 minutes in Athens, it departed for Rome. I flew to Minneapolis to interview two of the passengers on the flight. No fatalities occurred among the 82passengers and 7crew members. Later, NTSB assigned L.D. Yesterday was the thirty-fourth anniversary of TWA Flight 841. The crew responded immediately by disengaging the autopilot and getting the aircraft under control. . "Dean" Kampschror, approached the "party coordinator" for the pilots' association, and Kampschror offered this consoling comment: Francis H. McAdams, Member, filed the following concurring and dissenting statement: Read more about this topic: TWA Flight 841 (1979), Aftermath, Wagners art is the most sensational self-portrayal and self- critique of German nature that it is possible to conceive.Thomas Mann (18751955), the outcome of the Clarence Thomas hearings and his subsequent appointment to the Supreme Court shows how misguided, narrow notions of racial solidarity that suppress dissent and critique can lead black folks to support individuals who will not protect their rights.bell hooks (b. c. 1955). As Derickson approached the two men to see what was happening, one of them kicked her in the chest. After eliminating all probable individual or combined mechanical failures, or malfunctions which could lead to slat extension, the Safety Board determined that the extension of the slats was the result of the flightcrew's manipulation of the flap/slat controls. Passengers: 67: Crew: 8: Fatalities: 75: Survivors: 0: Air Vietnam Flight 706 was a Boeing 727 that crashed on September 15, 1974, near Phan Rang Air Base in South Vietnam. 2, 3, 6 and 7 leading edge slats and the subsequent retraction of the Nos. Three members of the Japanese Red Army recruited by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - External Operations (PFLP-EO), attacked Lod Airport (now Ben Gurion International Airport) near Tel Aviv, killing 26 people and injuring 80 others. But the story doesn't end thereThis episode has now been shown but is available to watch on catch-up. During the first two weeks of this NTSB investigation, several investigative mis-steps, and policy-reversals, affected the later course of this investigation. At the time of the incident, tensions in the Middle East were high following the ousting of the PLO from Jordan. Barry Werth, 31 Days: Gerald Ford, The Nixon Pardon and a Government in Crisis (New York: Anchor Books). An event that impacted the dynamics of global politics and inspired the increase in terrorism. He was the one, so the story went, who in 1979 caused a Boeing 727 to fall out of the sky and plunge 34,000 feet in 44 seconds, risking the lives of 82 passengers, by playing around with circuit breakers in the cockpit. Le Duc Tan, a ranger in the South Vietnamese army . New York to San Francisco, TWA's L1011, Flight 843, would soon fly into the journals of aviation history. However, 21 minutes of the 30-minute tape were blank. The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the plane had been destroyed by a bomb hidden in the cargo hold. Onions? [1]:6 Tests of the CVR in the aircraft revealed no discrepancies in the CVR's electrical and recording systems. However, a spokesman for TWA said sabotage was "highly unlikely. March 1981 -- ALPA submission in response to NTSB's request for analysis: Tuesday, 9 June 1981, NTSB Board Meeting, two of the five Board Members voted to adopt their staff's Probable Cause statement for AAR 81-8: The Probable Cause was adopted at this Board Meeting (the second "Sunshine Meeting"). All 79 passengers and nine crew members were killed. In response, NTSB's Tom Hauter replied (letter dated May 6, 2009): Since that "alpa" Petition (describing Yorke's analysis) was delivered to all parties in Oct'1990, with receipt-acknowledged, that 90-day comment period ended in early 1991. [citation needed] The crash occurred about 50 nautical miles west of Cephalonia, Greece. The highjacking of Trans World Airlines (TWA) flight 847. In its investigation into the incident, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) discovered that the number seven leading-edge slat was missing from the plane. But almost a decade later, Gibson is still trying to clear his name. . Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. I've had my Andy Warhol designated 15 minutes of fame. Trans World Airlines Flight 2, a Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation named Star of the Seine, with Captain Jack Gandy (age 41), First Officer James Ritner (31), and Flight Engineer Forrest Breyfogle (37), departed Los Angeles on Saturday, June 30, 1956, at 9:01 am PST with 64 passengers (including 11 TWA off-duty employees on free tickets) and six crew members (including two . Based in Alicante, Spain. For the last 11 years, ever since the night he captained TWA Flight 841 from New York to the Twin Cities, Gibson`s life has been this way. . Regarding the NTSB's concern for "scientific retraction" of their published mistakes, C.O. The affidavit was signed by P.T. The erroneous, unwarranted assumptionthat an Extended #7 Slat caused the INITIAL upsetfouled each phase of the NTSB investigation from 1979 to June'81. New Marvel Sequel, 'Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse' Gets First Trailer . 7 leading edge slat in the fully or partially extended position after an extension of the Nos. On September 8, 1974, a Boeing 707-331B ( registered N8734 [1]) operating as TWA Flight 841 from Tel Aviv to New York City via Athens and Rome crashed into the Ionian Sea, killing all aboard. [1]:2[8] Investigators believed that 727 pilots (in general, and this flight specifically) were setting the trailing edge flaps to two degrees during high altitude cruise, while at the same time pulling the circuit breaker for the slats so that they would not activate. National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Ted Lopatkiewicz said the petition will be reviewed by the agency`s staff. 0:07. The report indicates most of the passengers were incapacitated when the aircraft landed anyway so the aircraft was pretty much doomed the moment the fire started. While cruising at 39,000 feet a TWA Boeing 727 suddenly rolled and dived 34,000 feet in 63 seconds. "[4] Later, the National Transportation Safety Board determined that the plane was indeed destroyed by a bomb hidden in the cargo hold, which caused structural failure resulting in uncontrollable flight. ''It never occurred to me that they would have tested this very same plane and found similar happenings and not tell us about it,'' said Landon Dowdey, a Washington lawyer who represented Gibson during the safety board`s investigation. B727 service. In the case of Flight 841, Gibson has maintained that the problems started when the plane began to make an unplanned right turn at 39,000 feet while on autopilot. . [2]:1. The airline's Tel Aviv office said 49 passengers boarded the plane there for Rome and the United States. The pilot Captain Harvey "Hoot" Gibson, said the plane was operating with the autopilot on "Altitude Hold" mode when it began a steep roll to the right. The plane, a Boeing 727 designed to cruise at about 525 miles an hour, had gone out Of control at 39,000 feet, twisted through a complete 360degree barrel roll and plunged 27,000 feet in 10 seconds, almost tearing itself apart before making an emergency landing at Detroit's Metropolitan Airport late Wednesday night. In June 1981, after the lengthiest investigation in aviation history, the National Transportation Safety Board said it had found nothing structurally wrong with the aircraft and blamed Gibson and the cockpit crew. At about 15,000 feet (4,600m) the pilots extended the landing gear in an attempt to slow the aircraft. Trans World Airlines (TWA) Flight 159 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight from New York City to Los Angeles, California, with a stopover in Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, Kentucky, that crashed after an aborted takeoff from Cincinnati on 6 November 1967.The Boeing 707 attempted to abort takeoff when the copilot . Photo: Roland Arhelger via Wikimedia Commons, Sudden Dive: How TWA Flight 841 Came Close To Catastrophe In 1979, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TWA_Boeing_727-100.jpg, Breaking: Lufthansa Makes Offer In Bid To Acquire ITA Airways, Etihad Signs Multi-Year Contrail Prevention And Carbon Credit Agreement. Reuters reported a total of 37 Americans aboard.